To be sure, not every iteration of vagina pride represents an unambiguous advancement for the feminist cause. It is a matter of dispute whether Eve Ensler’s twee flights of fancy about vaginas that smell like “snowflakes” are really good for the sisterhood. And whatever Greer was hoping for when she enjoined women to “boast of…their venery,” it is safe to say that it was not “vajazzling,” the modern trend of affixing crystals to the shaven pudendum.

One might reasonably argue that the occasional outburst of snowflakery is a tolerable price to pay for liberation. But Naomi Wolf would counsel against such complacency. In her new “biography” of the vagina, she warns that her subject is in danger of being trivialized by its cultural ubiquity. The vagina, properly understood, is, “part of the female soul” and the medium for the “meaning of life itself.” In order to free female sexuality from patriarchal calumny, pornographic distortion, and some of the damaging myths of second-wave feminism, it is essential, she argues, that women reclaim the “magic” of the vagina and restore it to its rightful place at “the center of the universe.”

"In order to free female sexuality from patriarchal calumny, pornographic distortion, and some of the damaging myths of second-wave feminism, it is essential, she argues, that women reclaim the “magic” of the vagina and restore it to its rightful place at “the center of the universe.”"

Oh.

So, let me get this right - at the "center of the universe" lies the right of the owner of the vagina to kill off her unborn child at will.

I mean, at the heart of it, that is the "Castle Keep" of feminism, isn't it?

So, I went to the NYRB Review and, surprising, the review was generally dismissive (although I have to confess, I didn't finish reading it. Reading someone else's review of someone else's book on their "mystical" vagina is surprisingly tiresome).

"In order to free female sexuality from patriarchal calumny, pornographic distortion, and some of the damaging myths of second-wave feminism, it is essential, she argues, that women reclaim the “magic” of the vagina and restore it to its rightful place at “the center of the universe.”"

I would take it to mean the opposite of what she is actually saying. There is nothing magical about the twat except that from it our future babies are born. That is the only way it is the center of our universe and in any way magical. And it's that function that many feminists want to remove women from.I'm now going to say something sexist. With that function women are beyond special. Without that function women are lesser men. The weaker sex, anything they can do men can do,only men can do it with with more strength and drive. (there are of course exceptions to the rule). I don't know why so many women try to run from that which makes them so unique and necessary and instead try to come across like men. This is also not to say that women can ONLY give birth. Only, if they make it part of their emancipation that THE most important thing about them is actually a shackle to their own freedom they are doing themselves and other women a great disservice.